unforgiven ➽ a Halilintar-centric fic

15 | your new brother

"Everyone, this is Petir." A calloused hand nudged him forward, bringing him before a hundred staring eyes. "He'll be your new brother from now on."

A ripple of muffled "hi's" and "hello's" phased throughout the sea of faceless children. Their voices, the clink of cutlery and plates all merged as one, static and whispers filling his ears. His vision was blackened around the edges, like shadows stalking the corner of his eyes.

He turned to the matron, eyes sliding up to her face. It was scribbled out with dancing red marker, a large, realistic unblinking eye embedded at the very center.

"Say hi to your new family, Petir," said the eye.

She pushed him forward. Several children stood from their seats, surrounding him with bloodied, fanged smiles each. They spoke loudly, but all he heard were rumbles, roars from a beast's underbelly. They took his arm and pulled him towards their table, fetching him a new plate of food.

They put a blue tray in front of him. A plate overflowing with squirming centipedes, spiders and worms, crawling out of the plate and falling onto his lap.

Petir looked around. The children around him were chatting among themselves, shoveling spoonful's of maggots into their noses, eyes and ears. He stared at his plate, then the spoon next to it.

He picked up the spoon and dug it into the pile of worms. They crawled up the metal handle, up his hand and arm, digging holes into skin and flesh. He tried to pull away, but he felt as if he were glued to his seat and the spoon. The bugs reached his eyes, and he watched as dozens of pincers dug in, ripping his eyesight out piece by piece.

It's been four months since Petir joined their big, happy family.

The matrons praised him for getting along well with the other kids. Petir smiled and nodded, before running off to join his friends.

They were all just like him. They were here because their mommies and daddies didn't want them. That was okay, though. He didn't want them, either.

He was friends with everyone. They were nice to him and he was nice to them, except for the older kids. The older kids were mean and weren't nice at all. They always took Petir's toys and locked him and his friends out of the room. But that was also okay, because they would always be gone soon.

During lunch today, while Petir was sitting with his friends, the matron walked to the front with a new face in tow, exactly like how Petir was when he first arrived, only larger and taller.

"Everyone, this is Angin," she said. "He'll be your new brother from now on."

It was like how Petir remembered it, word for word. However, instead of joining them for lunch like Petir, Angin ran away.

Did he not like his new family?

Angin didn't join them for lunch, but he showed up at playtime. He didn't talk to anyone or play with anyone. He sat in a corner, staring at the wall.

A couple kids tried to get him to join them, but he shooed them away or just ignored them until they left themselves. They began to dislike him, including Petir's friends, but Petir thought that was wrong. Maybe Angin was just shy.

So he walked up to Angin himself, and sat next to him during lunch.

"Go away," was the first thing Angin said.

Petir shook his head. "My name's Petir," he said innocently. "It's okay. My mommy and daddy don't want me either."

"Well, my mommy does," Angin huffed, crossing his arms. "I'm not like you all. My mommy wants me. She's very far away now, but she'll come back for me."

"Oh." Petir poked at his porridge. "Where is she?"

"I don't know," Angin answered. "But Ocho says she's out getting milk and will be back very soon."

"I never had a mommy," Petir said. "Can your mommy be my mommy too?"

Angin threw a huge fit over that, throwing his food at Petir and catching the attention of the matrons. Petir was pulled away by his friends to clean up while Angin was given a timeout.

Weeks after, Angin was still a loner. He pushed away the other kids and even got into fights with the older kids. Whenever Petir passed by the matron's office, he always saw him standing and facing the wall with a dunce cap on his head.

He was also angry all the time. Petir didn't know how he could stay angry for so long. When Petir got mad, he could only stay mad for a few minutes because he'd start crying. Then after he was finished crying, he'd go back to his normal self. Maybe Angin just needed a hug, or a good amount of chili in his noodles. They worked for Petir all the time.

Today the matron brought in another kid. A short, shy kid who clung to her pants, even when she tried to introduce him to the others.

"Everyone, this is Tanah," she recited like clockwork. "He'll be your new brother from now on."

Tanah was a lot nicer than Angin, but he was also a lot quieter and smaller. He joined Petir's table because the younger tables were all full.

Tanah was also a picky eater. He didn't like apples at all, so Tanah gave Petir his apple slices and Petir gave Tanah his yoghurt. He'd get scolded by the kakak for it, but it was worth it to see Tanah break out into a smile.

Most of the time, Tanah joined the younger kids to play because they were his age. Petir and his friends colored in old coloring books or reenacted fairy tales from the tearing storybooks they were given. Sometimes though, they would need a damsel in distress, so they'd borrow Tanah so he could sit on a cardboard throne with a paper crown on his head while Petir and his friends brawled with Styrofoam sticks.

He'd always take Petir's side though, whenever Petir was outnumbered. Tanah would lunge from his seat and tackle his opposers, clawing uselessly at their shirts until they pretended to faint, enacting a dramatic defeat from the almighty princess Tanah.

Then they'd wake up and panic because Tanah would start bawling, thinking he'd killed someone and would be taken away to jail.

"It's okay, Tanah, you didn't kill anyone," Adult Halilintar comforted him, running soothing circles around his back as his friends tidied up the place. He gestured to his friend laying on the ground, turning around. "See? They're perfectly okay—"

Petir's bloodless face stared back at him.

His younger self lay dead, impaled by a cackling scarlet tinted spear.

"I didn't," Tanah said with Gempa's voice, shadow looming over Halilintar and Petir's corpse.

"But you did."

The ground beneath him disappeared, and the abyss swallowed Halilintar whole.

Halilintar woke with a start.

His shoulders heaved, his breath hitched. With cold sweat rolling down his cheeks, he looked around, the fog in his mind slowly subsiding as he realized he was in his own room.

So, another nightmare.

He wiped sweat from his brow with the back of his hand, desperately trying to calm his own breaths. It was still nighttime, the house quiet as ever.

Through the glass, he caught his own reflection: eyes blown wide and lips pale, the picture-perfect image of a deer caught in headlights.